John Neumeier — director and chief choreographer for Hamburg Ballet — blends dance, dramatic storytelling and spectacle into a unique interpretation of a classic Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. With choreography, sets, costumes, and lighting, all by Neumeier, this ballet—as much theater as it is dance—takes the dancers into deep emotional terrain. The acclaimed production of The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Balletairs onGreat PerformancesFriday, December 16 at 9 p.m. ET , as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.

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Great Performancesis a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET New York Public Media, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local arts programming to the New York community.

Those expecting a simple ballet adaptation of the Disney animated film will be surprised to find a complex and intense portrayal of unrequited love and the resilience of the human spirit.

San Francisco Ballet – the oldest professional ballet company in America – received Neumeier’s rare permission to present the American premiere in March 2010, which was met with ecstatic audience response, and hailed by critics as “mesmerizing” and “moving.” The two-act production features an evocative score by the young Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach which mixes haunting melodic passages with moody undercurrents atonality and dissonance.

Neumeier created the ballet for The Royal Danish Ballet in 2005 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Andersen’s birth, and a subsequent Hamburg Ballet version premiered in 2007. Of all the famous writer’s stories, the choreographer chose this one because of its “very particular concept of love,” he says. “Love that is so strong that it can overcome boundaries, that it can transport her to new worlds, although it may seem to be self-destructive—because the Mermaid re-creates herself at the cost of extreme personal pain. But the story teaches us, at the same time, that no matter how strong our love may be, it doesn’t obligate the object of our love to love us in return.”

Neumeier, a Milwaukee-born American who has spent nearly his entire career in Europe, trained inCopenhagen and London and began his dancing and choreographic careers at Stuttgart Ballet. After only six years there, in 1969 he became director of the Frankfurt Ballet, where he caused a stir with his reinventions of classics such as Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet. Four years later he began his tenure as director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet, and in 1978 he founded a school that now supplies more than 70 percent of the company’s dancers. He has created close to 140 ballets for his own company and as a guest choreographer for American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, and throughout Europe. His extensive list of honors includes dance and arts awards from the United States,Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Denmark, and several publications.

“We are grateful to our co-partners and sponsors for the opportunity to broadcast this truly unique and dazzling production,” said SF Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy. “San Francisco Ballet was very proud to present the United States premiere of John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid, and we are thrilled that the Company has the opportunity to share it with wider audiences, not only nationally, but worldwide,” added McCoy.

San Francisco Ballet prima ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan (star of past Dance in America SFB productions such as Lar Lubovitch’s Othello and Helgi Tomasson’s Nutcracker) plays the title role. She found a strong personal connection with the Mermaid, she says, in the character’s pursuit of “unconditional love. People dream about it. And [the Mermaid] tries to pursue it, and fails, but still believes in it.”

Written between the lines of this fable about personal sacrifice was a far more personal dimension—Andersen’s own torment. According to Neumeier, many scholars believe that this story is probably Andersen’s most autobiographical work. The writer had a history of falling in love with women he could not have, and a few men as well. This tale of unreciprocated love could well be his own; shortly before he wrote it he had suffered greatly at the marriage of Edvard Collin, a love interest who did not return his affections. “So in a sense,” Neumeier says, “Andersen’s disappointment [about Collin] is the jumping-off point for The Little Mermaid.”

Neumeier has played on that fact, expanding the ballet’s story to include a representation of Andersen in the character of the Poet. Neumeier didn’t intend to depict Collin specifically; instead, he says “the historical facts inspire and help to create a new Prince.”

The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet is a production of the San Francisco Ballet Association, NDR/ARTE and THIRTEEN for WNET, in association with BFMI and C Major Entertainment. It is produced by Judy Flannery and Bernhard Fleischer. For Great Performances, Joan Hershey is producer; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; and David Horn is executive producer. It was directed for television by Thomas Grimm. It will be released on DVD and Blu-ray by Naxos.

Major funding for the telecast, which was filmed in May at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and shot in high definition using eight cameras, is provided by The James Irvine Foundation, Lucy Jewett, Mrs. Jeannik Mequet Littlefield, the Bob Ross Foundation, Fang and Gary Bridge, the Helgi Tomasson Innovation Fund of the San Francisco Ballet Endowment Foundation, and Tim Dattels. Major funding forGreat Performancesis provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Starr Foundation, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation.

About WNET New York’s WNET is America’s flagship public media outlet, bringing quality arts, education and public affairs programming to over 5 million viewers each week. The parent company of public television stationsTHIRTEEN and WLIW21 and operator of NJTV, WNET produces such acclaimed PBS series as Nature,Great Performances, American Masters, Need to Know, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley and a range of documentaries, children’s programs, and local news and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking series as Get the Math,Noah Comprende and Cyberchase and provides tools for educators that bring compelling content to life in the classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state’s unique culture and diverse communities through SundayArts, Reel 13, NJ Today and the new online newsmagazine MetroFocus.

About San Francisco BalletAs America’s oldest professional ballet company, San Francisco Ballet has enjoyed a long and rich tradition of artistic “firsts” since its founding in 1933, including performing the first American productions ofSwan Lake and Nutcracker, as well as the first 20th-century American Coppelia. San Francisco Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States. Guided in its early years by American dance pioneers and brothers Lew, Willam and Harold Christensen, San Francisco Ballet currently presents more than 100 performances annually, both locally and internationally. Under the direction ofHelgi Tomasson for more than two decades, the Company has achieved an international reputation as one of the preeminent ballet companies in the world. In 2005, San Francisco Ballet won the prestigiousLaurence Olivier Award in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Dance” and in 2006, it was the first non-European company elected “Company of the Year” in Dance Europe magazine’s annual readers’ poll. In 2008, the Company marked its 75thanniversary with a host of initiatives including an ambitious New Works Festival. Recent highlights include a tour to the People’s Republic of China, the celebration of Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson’s 25th anniversary with the Company, and the United States premiere of John Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid, which will be broadcast internationally, as well as nationally on PBS’s Great Performances “Dance in America” in December 2011.

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Photos and other material can be accessed at the THIRTEEN Online Pressroom: www.thirteen.org/pressroom/gperf.

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